just a side note. Shop lights are for lighting shops. I had mine hung 1/2 inch or so abouve my tank andl had a lot of spill. If you lay them on your tank rim, the bulbs will touch the rim, not the reflectors. Ultimately when you look at your tank from eye level - you will see bulb (which in not a pretty sight - it is bright and anoying).

I just hung a shop light over my 55 gallon tank. My old light strip died and it was all that I could afford for now. Eventually, I do want to get the AH Supply kit.

I have noticed that the light spills out the front too much and I don't really like that. While my husband's home this week, we're going to tack something to the front and back, to reflect the light back into the tank. I'm not sure what yet, but we'll look around and see what might work best. I'm seeing a lot more growth on my plants with this light, so it must be a little better than the regular strip light that came with the tank.

Simplest (and cheapest) solution for your shoplight is duck tape. Yes duck tape (used to be called duct tape, when it was still legal to use it on ducts). Just run a strip down the length, then another tape to tape on the inside. You can spray paint the entire unit whatever color you like (I'm partial to flat black) including the tape, and you won't be able to tell it's only tape. You will need to use a primer coat before the final coat, or the paint won't stick well to both the metal and the tape. Since the tape is flexible, it works very well with the unit, forming a nice seal on the tank top, so light won't leak into your view.

Simplest (and cheapest) solution for your shoplight is duck tape. Yes duck tape (used to be called duct tape, when it was still legal to use it on ducts). Just run a strip down the length, then another tape to tape on the inside. You can spray paint the entire unit whatever color you like (I'm partial to flat black) including the tape, and you won't be able to tell it's only tape. You will need to use a primer coat before the final coat, or the paint won't stick well to both the metal and the tape. Since the tape is flexible, it works very well with the unit, forming a nice seal on the tank top, so light won't leak into your view.

Oh wow, thanks for the tip! I never would've thought of that and I've used duck tape for some VERY strange things, including pulling the remaining hair off of my husband's head when he had cancer and the hair was falling outStory

Plants use up the CO2, thus, in a non-CO2 dosed tank the CO2 levels could fall below that of the ambient air and having surface movement from an airpump could help push the CO2 levels back up to ambient.

But if you start with any CO2, even DIY, you'll want to discontinue the airpump (unless you use one for a few hours at night to help the oxygen levels).

if i diy co2, can i run the hose through airstones still? will that work as a diffuser?

i was kind of planning on hooking a diy co2 in line with the air pump hose, i thought it would keep pressure in the line and prevent a cyphon back into the reactor. is there a better way to prevent this?

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